Seventy-seven years of editorial freedom Edited and managed by students of the University of Michigan under authority of Board in Control of Student Publications 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mich. News Phone: 764-0552 Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily exp ress the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints. TUESDAY, AUGUST 13, 1968 NIGHT EDITOR: URBAN LEHNER The Big Ten inquiry: Preserving the double standard Gt / U/ 4I/ 11 S~c: r (&R"AIN MA I , "That's our nation' s trouble these dlays- too much cynicism." 'A THE DECISION last week by Big Ten officials to clear Michigan State Uni- versity of charges the school provided illegal aid to athletes, fails to confront the important issue raised by the allega- tions; and only reinforces the "double- standard" between what the conference rules say and what athletic departments actually do. The statement by Commissioner Bill Reed reveals the superficial nature of the Big Ten inquiry. "It is my considered judgment that with respect to each of the published allegations either there is not'sufficient grounds for believing that a violation oc- curred or that remedial action taken by (Michigan State) is adequate," he said. Reed was referring to the charges pub- lished in a series of Daily articles on athletic aid at Michigan and Michigan State. Daily reporters found abundant evidence of various violations including free movie passes, grill passes, excessive ticket allotment, summer jobs, and pos- sible recruiting irregularities. Only a small proportion of the evidence uncovered was actually printed, however, since the purpose of the articles was not to condemn the particular institutions involved, but to reveal the widespread "double-standard" between the rules and the reality of Big Ten athletics. REED'S STATEMENT indicates that conference officials investigated the charges with a different purpose in mind; to disprove individually each of the pub- lished allegations. Big Ten investigators evidently chose to ignore the nine-tenths of the iceberg below the legitimate sur- face of Michigan State athletics. The stance taken by Spartan coach Duffy Daugherty of outraged indignation at The Daily's charges was a wise move; for as shown by last year's "slush fund scandal" at Illinois, the worst thing a Big Ten school can do is to admit its own guilt. Daugherty's later decision to drop his threatened libel suit against The Daily, however, suggests that the allegations may have had some merit. Nevertheless, Big Ten investigators were able to "disprove" some of the spe- cific charges and waited for "remedial action" by MSU officials on the rest. THIS POSITION is identical to that taken by individual athletic directors when irregularities came to light in the past, with the notable exception of the 1967 Illinois case. Retired Michigan athletic director H. O. (Fritz) Crisler told Daily reporters he "hunted down several breaches of Big Ten rules in past years" but "corrected the situations before a conference inves- tigation was necessary". The Big Ten has shown that it is more than willing to go along with this atti- tude, since it is interested primarily in good public relations, rather than enforc- ing the "Conference Rules and Regula- tions" listed in the Official Handbook. The University of Michigan, however, is more likely to be penalized when the Big Ten reports in six weeks on its al- leged violations, since several Wolverine coaches admitted knowledge of the ir- regularities. Whether or not a penalty is imposed, however, the Big Ten will have missed the point. Once again, violations either will or will not have been "swept under the rug." And once again, the "double- standard" will have been preserved. Hopefully, future allegations at other Big Ten schools can reverse this trend, and force the complete investigation of current practices and the necessary re- vision of an outdated rulebook. -DAVID WEIR Sports Editor 01948 104So What's Ncull?" Robinson's defeetion: A trend? CAMPAIGNS AGAINST Richard Milhous Nixon have traditionally been waged with a certain relish. From the beginning the boy from Yorba Linda, Whittier, the White House and Wall Street has struck an image of pathetic ineptitude. It would haye been cruel to poke fun at him except that he has always been so arrogant in his blundering, so self-righteous about par king his foot in his mouth. Not that the attacks have been inspired whollyoby sentiments of good natured fun. What admirers refer to as his "pragmatic approach" to issues has often in the past been a euphemism for a ruthless am- bition. Many will never forget his campaigns against Jerry Voorheis and Helen Gahagan Douglas, the Hiss and Chambers affairs, Checkers, the 1954 campaign, etc. ad nauseam. But given this basic layer of reasons for hating Nixon, the actual task of converting opprobrium into hatchet job hasn't necessarily been unpleasurable. Some of the poison works written about Nixon have become classics of the genre, like Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.'s seminal 1960 essay Kennedy or Nixon: Does It Make Any Difference? Schlesinger's themes, in keeping with his interests and his style, were essentially scholarly. He tried to probe the Nixon personality with the tools of the sociologist, and concluded that Nixon was the archtype of Riesman's "lonely crowd" thesis. - r= -t 0; , rr+ - !!' ,, r r z- . . ,, ter: h ' . , _ .ate, . : A L T H O U G H hardly what someone would call a key political figure, the defection of Jackie Robinson to the Dem- ocrats is at least an indication, in Sen. Javits modest understatement, "that all isn't perfect in Republican-land." For it is a general rule in contempor- ary American politics that leaders are led, that those uncommitted to the pres- ent political party structure will act on principal long before a party leader does, and that such massive reaction by any large number of people will draw some politicians with it. The Vietnam War is the handiest example, and what Robin- son did may be, on a smaller scale, a similar phenomenon. Robinson acted forthrightly before any major politician who might be so inclined to take a similar step, and it is possible that there may be more liberal defections from the Nixon-Agnew ticket. While mass defections are not likely, a minority party like the Republicans needs all the votes it can get and can't afford even minor disruptions of "unity." BUT THE WHOLE question of defections is indeed a strange one, for the Re- publicans in their Miami festivities last week spent much of their time enthus- iastically telling each other that victory depends on unity. Each candidate care- fully commented that he would support his foes if they were nominated and pledged his fullest support to the deci- sion of the convention. Nixon, above all, the staunchest party man of the lot, swore by party unity. Yet it was he who created the threat of a split that now exists, however weak or strong it may be. It was under the guise of unity Nixon directed his appeal to the South, and it was that appeal which threatens to dis- rupt conciliation in the party. The choos- ing of an Agnew or even a Goldwater conservative like Sen. John Tower of Texas would have been acceptable if the Republican presidential nominee had been Rockefeller, Percy, or Lindsay. But Nixon fails to generate in the north, especially in the northeast, the necessary enthusiasm, to counter the lib- erals' dismay over a choice like Agnew. that he may have been jumping into un- known waters by declaring for whoever the Democrats nominate - Humphrey, McCarthy or McGovern. Nixon has at times sounded liberal enough to warrant the support of a moderate Negro like Robinson. He was talking a liberal. a day or two before his nomination and there's no telling what he'll be saying a day or two from now. But on both questions, Robinson's reasoning seems to have been sound. No matter what Nixon says now, he has committed himself to the "Southern strategy." The very fact that he assured Sen. Strom Thurmond a veto power over his vice presidential choice bodes ill for' the rest of his campaign. And the ma- terial choice of Agnew makes a far stronger and more convincing commit- ment than any speech he might make. As for the'choice among the Democrats, the alternatives are uniformly accept- able to the Negro vote. Pragmatically, the alternatives are unimportant as far as domestic affairs are concerned; there is no platform fight brewing on domestic issues as there is on Vietnam and there is thus no threat to the nominee's stand, and that nominee is assuredly Humphrey. WITH THE added revelation that Sen. Jacob Javits is having second thoughts about the Republican ticket, trouble may be brewing for the Republi- cans, at least in the North and North- east. And the problem it creates for Mayor John Lindsay is the most inter- esting aspect. Lindsay, much more liberal than Javit; , has committed himself to Nixon and the party as part of his plans for capturing the Republican presidential nomination in '72. While he can still verbally support Nixon - in fact, he has to after the strong commitment he has already voiced - it cannot be less than very embarrass- ing to him to be out-liberaled by some- one on his right. If defections on any larger scale do develop, he will be left holding a rather strange looking bag, but one which it would be even more embar- rassing politically for him to abandon. In the long run, though, despite his own stand, a liberal revolt against Nixon- DRIVING ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL IN A 1968 NIXON I It is the cartoonists, however, and not the authors, who have the most fun with Nixon. They have drawn every conceivable Nixonism. Early this year, Herb Block of the Washington Post sketched a frame in which Nixon is standing over this squat, dumpy auto with a card- board sign in the window. The caption (inveitably) smacked of, "Would you buy a used car from this man?" About the same time, Newton Pratt of the Sacramento Bee portrayed a smiling Nixon marching triumphantly into the city room of a newspaper and an- nouncing to the gentlemen of the press that they had "Dick Nixon to kick around again." BUT THIS YEAR for the most part the spring of Nixon ideas has been comparatively dry. As Robert Semple, Jr. pointed out in Sunday's New York Times, the Nixon, watchword for this year has been "caution." Thus, the cartoons this year have not been able to attack recent Nixon bloopers; instead, they have clung to the old cliches, or attacked the limbo state into which Nixon's personality seem to have gone, or just waited. Two of the eternal themes remain. There is the Nixon face, a face which-like Lyndon Johnson's-is adaptable to the grossest cari- catures. And there is Nixon's never-ending attempt to show the world that he is a changed man. This year, that effort has taken the form of a "New-Nixon" publicity campaign. And after the depressingly anachronistic events of last week's Republican convention, the keynote question for the campaign to come is the one asked on this page by Herb Block: "So What's New?" -URBAN LEHNER Co-Editor The making of a President-i968 A rI J ', r. iii } ] !' r .a ' ! Ill rp , a f a I * Ii I I i 4 1 ' 1 Z . t , * ,.b.s .'_ .' i \' Ilf . I IAffi. ~Af a M~AIN~UU J